So, um, after roasting some garlic on the grill tonight (for salsa a li’l later), I got to thinking . . .
Just where in the heck do vampires get their hatred for garlic? I mean, I’ve got enough in me right now to keep me safe for the rest of the calendar year, but just where do they get their ‘reactions’/‘hatred’ of garlic from?
Tripler
Mmmmmm. Grill roasted garlic. Mmmmmmmm . . .
Not a heck of a lot of help, but garlic is a traditional way to ward off evil, not only vampires. Where this connection comes from, though, I don’t know.
Well, garlic has a pungent odor and taste. I’ve read that one does not wish for one’s milk cow to eat garlic or onions while she is producing milk, as the flavor will pass into the milk.
And as pulykamell said, garlic is said to keep evil at bay. In my father’s family, at least (his parents were from Sicily) garlic was believed to be a very healthy food, good for curing all sorts of sicknesses. And today, sure enough, science is saying that garlic IS a healthy seasoning choice. Of course, I’d eat garlic whether it had health benefits or not. We often bake a head of garlic with our roasts.
When looking at folklore, notice how cures and safeguards are mostly easily obtained by peasants. Iron is supposed to burn fairies, silver is deadly to werewolves and vampires, an apple a day keeps the doctor away (dried apples are easy to store), a horseshoe for good luck (when horses are widely used for transportation and labor, old horseshoes are easy to come by), etc. Even a bit of silver is enough to slay the Undead, though it’s expensive.
People who are trying to ward off vampires by stringing whole cloves around their necks are making a big mistake.
EATING eight or ten cloves,however,will pretty much ward off anyone with a working nose.
That depends on how the garlic is cooked. If it’s roasted whole, it has an amazingly delicate nutty flavor. If it’s been chopped up and eaten raw, it has the strongest flavor.
I think it’s part of the vampire’s curse. In addition to not being able to come near holy objects or enjoy the warming rays of the sun, a vampire finds himself suddenly allergic to the wonderfullest food making taste good seasoning type plant the Good Lord saw fit to put on this earth.
Man, that really must suck.
It’s a good plot device. Like Superman and kryptonite.
It isn’t garlic. AFAIK, aside the current link between vampires and garlic stems entirely from ‘Dracula”. In that vel it is not the pungent scent of garlic that acts as a vampire repellant but the sweet scent of garlic blossoms.
Garlic has blood thinning properties. Vampires avoid garlic eaters like coffee hounds avoid decaf.